Ray stated:



"It certainly would prevent gestational diabetes a leading complication in pregnancy.



Ray"





Not necessarily true. Gestational diabetes is only pregnancy induced, and once the pregnancy is over the woman is not a diabetic. 



Gestational diabetes shows most often in the later stages of pregnancy - rarely before 20 weeks. The hypothesis is that the growing placenta releases greater amounts of insulin-interfering hormones. In pregnancy, the placental hormones cause a rise in blood sugars.  



There is no way to stop gestational diabetes, not even by restricting the amount of carbs a pregnant woman consumes as it is caused by the placenta.  The only cure is delivery or end of pregnancy. Also, gestational diabetes does not necessarily occur with subsequent pregnancies. 



There are risk factors - the same as always, including race factors, maternal age (after 25), previous GD, family history, etc. 



For instance, my sister in law has 6 children. She had GD with the 3rd and 4th and 5th pregnancies, but not the others. An interesting point is that she is allergic to grains and lots of other foods,  and has eaten a very restrictive paleo-type "diet" from childhood. So even though her diet consists of grass-feed meats, veggies and only grapes and apples, has no familial history of diabetes, and is not post-natally diabetic, she still developed GD three times.  



Trish

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